


For Such a Time As This

by Zdenka



Category: 1st Century CE RPF, Post-Biblical Jewish RPF
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Berenice goes like Esther to plead for her people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Such a Time As This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/gifts).



> I am not an expert in this time period. I apologize for any historical or religious errors which may have crept in.

Berenice knows the story of Esther Hadassah. She has heard it read aloud in the Holy Temple, seen it written in both Hebrew and Greek. When her people were threatened with destruction, Esther adorned herself and went before the king unsummoned, though to do so meant death. Berenice imagines Esther commanding her maids in the harem: they must comb her long hair until it gleams and array it in comely fashion. They must paint her lips and cheeks with the bloom of roses; she is pale with fasting, but her face must be beautiful. They must outline her eyes so their brilliance may stand out; she has spent the nights in prayer rather than sleep, but she must not seem weary. She must be scented with oil of myrrh and with perfume, clad in robes of gold and scarlet, with precious ornaments to delight the heart of the king and divert his eye. Only so can she hope to gain an audience. Only so can she hope to save her people.

Berenice knows well how to manage such matters. Though the bloom of her youth is past, she can still daunt men of power with her haughtiness and beauty. But that will not serve her today.

Berenice too goes forth today to petition for her people's deliverance, but she goes barefoot, without cosmetics or ornaments. Today, she must be humble. Today she must plead. And yet, she thinks, for a queen to plead for her people’s sake does not shame but ennoble her.

Berenice draws her veil about her face before she goes out into the city, to keep off the sun’s rays. She feels the thick weight of her hair resting upon her shoulders. It will not be there for much longer. Another Berenice, a pagan queen, once dedicated her hair for her husband’s safe return from war. They said it was taken up to the heavens as a constellation, the Lock of Berenice; some poet of Alexandria spun the legend into lines of self-consciously witty verse. Berenice has found small help in husbands or poets. Her prayer is for her people's safety, and her hair will be shorn in fulfillment of her vow to the Lord. 

The guards who walk beside and in front of her litter are uneasy; she can see it in their abrupt motions, the way their eyes dart here and there, their hands too often upon the hilt of their swords. They would die in her defense, but if the Roman auxiliaries attack, they know they are too few. Her master of horse advised her strongly against going out. But a queen does not refuse to face danger, and it is unworthy to remain silent in the face of her people’s slaughter. Over the past few days, she has sent her guards and her officers to carry her protests to the governor. Gessius Florus sent them back unheeded. Now she will address the governor herself. If he will refuse her, let him do it to her face.

No one stands forth to challenge them. A deathly silence hangs over the city; her Jerusalem, which her brother likes to call “most very beautiful.” No trade is being conducted in the marketplace, left in ruins by the governor’s soldiers. The dead have been buried with lamentation. She can cross the city now without risking the violation of her vow by coming into the presence of corpses. Berenice steels her heart against too much pity. When she stands before the governor, her voice will not shake with tears or anger unless it serves her purpose.

The Roman governor has set up his residence in the royal palace built by a king of her kindred. When she alights before the gates, the place is thronged with soldiers and scribes moving purposefully back and forth on the business of empire. Some of the soldiers she passes may be the same ones who sacked the marketplace with the governor’s connivance, who dragged women and children out of their homes to die. As she steps through the courtyard to the governor’s tribunal, the stones are rough upon her bare feet. But she is a queen –- the daughter, sister, and wife of kings. She does not acknowledge the soldiers by so much as a glance. She does not look down to find the smoothest paths. She walks as if treading upon purple. 

Gessius Florus is a man without mercy. His cruelty and rapacity have filled the city with blood and its people with lamentation. Berenice has little hope of success. But for her people’s sake, she will do her utmost. She goes before the Roman governor barefoot and without adornments; but hidden in the bosom of her gown, she bears a small sprig of Jerusalem’s myrtle.

* * *

_Then Mordecai told them to return answer to Esther, "Think not that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"_

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> The name Hadassah means myrtle.
> 
> "some poet of Alexandria": Callimachus. Judging by what survives (and Catullus's Latin translation), it really was a charming poem.
> 
> The final passage in italics is from the Book of Esther, 4:13-14.
> 
> Berenice’s appeal to Gessius Florus did not meet with success. As recounted by Josephus in _The Jewish War_ II.15, she “stood barefoot before Florus's tribunal, and besought him [to spare the Jews]. Yet could she neither have any reverence paid to her, nor could she escape without some danger of being slain herself.” (trans. William Whiston)
> 
> I would like to think that Berenice had a reckoning with Florus later on, but history does not record what became of him.
> 
>   **Illustration Credit:**
> 
> Berenice and her brother Herod Agrippa II. Detail from _Trial of the Apostle Paul_ by Nikolai Bodarevsky (1875).


End file.
